Russia and USA conduct secret operation

[lovuian]

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/23-10-2008/106611-russia_usa_uranium-0

More than 340 pounds (154 kilograms) of weapons-grade uranium was transported secretly over thousands of miles (kilometers) by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against possible theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.





The shipment, conducted under tight secrecy and security, included a three-week trip by cargo ship through the Mediterranean Sea, up the English Channel and the North Sea to Russia's Arctic seaport of Murmansk, the only port cleared by Russia for handling nuclear materiel.

The 13 radiation-proof casks, each weighing 17,000 pounds, arrived by rail at the secure nuclear material facility at Mayak in Siberia on Wednesday, said Kenneth Baker official at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, who oversaw the complex project.

It is the largest recovery to date of highly enriched uranium provided either by the former Soviet Union or the United States under a program, begun in the 1950s, aimed at spreading the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The two countries have been working to return the spent fuel from reactors around the world because at many of the facilities, including the one in Budapest, security is lax, which raised the possibility of the materiel being stolen by terrorists.

"It was a big shipment, the biggest one we've ever done," said Baker in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press hours after he received word that the shipment at arrived at its final destination in Russia. "It was basically enough to make six nuclear weapons."

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I just hope none got lost along the way ...so a terrorist might get it :tinfoil: